been advocating since 2001, namely negotiating with the Afghan Taliban and giving Pakistan all the weapons it needs to fight Al Qaeda. If this is the case, there certainly isn't anything in the public statements of US officials that leads to this optimism, unless there is a secret side to this new policy that only a few in Islamabad know about. So far it looks more like Pakistani officials misleading their people about the extent of the Zardari-Gilani government's capitulation before the Americans. Otherwise, how to explain that the government welcomed Obama's policy within minutes of the speech, only to be followed by the most intensive verbal attacks by senior US military officials against Pakistan's military intelligence community, as if the Afghan blunders are entirely of our making?
The danger of complete Pakistani surrender to an imposed war is heightened because of signs that Washington is using Pakistan's flawed democracy as a tool to meddle and to keep Pakistan politically unstable. If our government is honest with Pakistanis and has not just sold us for a few billion dollars, someone in this government should have the courage to declare that Washington does not have the right to equate Pakistan with a failed state like the US-occupied and administered Afghanistan. Someone should also have the courage to say that we will henceforth not entertain any 'Af-Pak special coordinators'. Additionally, we in Pakistan must keep an equal distance from all players inside Afghanistan. But at the same time we should say it without embarrassment that we have no strategic conflict of interest with one of the key Afghan parties – the Afghan Taliban – just because America and its puppet regime in Kabul have problems with them. Why should we pick up a fight that is not ours? Sure, Al Qaeda are our enemies and we have killed so many important ones among them that our intentions here cannot be questioned. But it is not Pakistan's responsibility to eliminate the Afghan Taliban. The Americans must bring them on board in Kabul
Washington and its list of 'Af-Pak' experts should stop treating our region as a laboratory for their strategic experiments. Instead of toying with silly ideas like backing 'secular Pashtuns' against the Taliban, the Americans can diffuse the entire tension in our region by sharing power with the Pashtuns in Kabul instead of the motley crew of Karzai, the drug lords and the assortment of former communist officials who sit in key offices today.
This American-British mess – the 'Am-Brit' – is the reason why Pakistan's entire western regions are disturbed today and there are those busy 'convincing' us that the 'Am-Brit' scheme of things is the best option for us. The question is: Whose side our government is on?
The writer works for Geo TV. Email: aqahmedquraishi.com